Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Don't you love surprises? I mean the good kind - not the car-broke-down what-do-I-do-now kind. Well its been that kind of week. First of all, SewCalGal's Christmas Quilt show came to an end and the winners were chosen. Carol H. won my donated package of goodies. She was all excited to win and I was all excited to give!! I decided to put together a stash of Paddington Bear Christmas fabric from Rose & Hubble. It includes 2 Christmas Stocking cheater panels, and 1.5 yds each of fabrics from the collection.

I hope you enjoy it Carol!!! Send me pic's of what you made with it and I'll put them up on the blog!!

I truly believe that when you do a good deed, that God will bless you 10 fold. 'Cause we all know that we can't out give God!! This week is definitely a testimony to that. In the same quilt show, I was radomly chosen to win a quilt kit of Moda's Luminere de Noel Quilt donated by the overly generous Fat Quarter Shop. A big THANK YOU goes out to them!! I've never done a quilt kit so I'm anxious to try it out. Its nice to have someone else make the decisions for once!

78" by 86"

I feel truly blessed this week - so much to be thankful for. You can still view the show if you need some Christmas spirit!! Thanks again SewCal and Fat Quarter Shop!!

Friday, November 19, 2010

Just a quick reminder that the Christmas Quilt Show is ending tomorrow. There is a ton of free giveaways including one from yours truly! So head on over to SewCal's great blog to the links to the entries and the rules!!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Every once in a while, I don't think its a bad idea to remember where we came from. I made this ten years ago as a quickie wall hanging for Christmas. Tessa was only turning 3 and it was appropriate at the time. . . well I guess Paddington Bear is appropriate anytime isn't he?? I remember I got the fabric on Ebay and it was from the now defunct Rose &amp; Hubble. I loved that company!!

Usually I try to learn and practice something with every project. With this one I was machine quilting with a lot of shiny metallic threads including Superior Threads Glitter Hallogram which is a flat thread. I found out that I couldn't free motion with it but it would make this funky stitch with it so I used it that way. I didn't enjoy all of that fussing though so I never really used it again.

Anyways, since the Christmas show is so early, I'm not quite done with my new Christmas Wallhanging so I'm sharing this one for the show. I promise to have the piecing/designing stage on the new one done by next Monday!!

Monday, November 8, 2010

Nothing new on my design board since I spent much of the week cleaning - including my sewing hole! That said, there is something new on my sewing table. I finally - yes finally - took the plunge into free motion embroidery. With two books on the subject which I've read back to back, you'd think I've done this sooner. I have done thread painting on my quilt before but never attempted to make a stand alone embroidered applique before. The Christmas pine boughs seemed like just the occasion to finally put on my big girl pants and try it.

With all of that said, I would need some supplies. I managed to buy the tulle at Joann's but headed to my very traditional local quilt shop. Now this shop is very nice and sells all sorts of fabrics and machine embroidery supplies. I went in looking for film stabilizer and a machine embroidery hoop. When I asked them for a hoop, they said the only hoops they sold like that went with their $2000 brother's machine and did I want to buy one LOL!! Needless to say, I went back to Joann's and bought the hand embroidery hoop for $2.50 instead.

Last night, I sat down to attempt it and realized that there was nothing to be afraid of. Using the clear directions in Quilt Savvy:Simple Thread Paintingit really wasn't hard at all. All you do is basically layer your applique with two sheets of water wash away stablizer and two pieces of tulle that is in a color that is close to what you are making. You draw or trace the pattern of the applique onto your stabilizer.

Then you drop your feed dogs, put on a good free motion foot and start moving the thread across the design to fill it in - just like a colored pencil. I used bobbin thread in my bobbin and a mix of rayons, polys, and cotton thread on top. First I started by sewing in stabilizer lines - the book said to do this when you are thread painting it directly onto your quilt but I didn't think it was a bad idea to do it with a free standing applique either. I mean - gosh - the last thing you want is a puckery design right??

I'm not sure what way I'm suppose to layer the colors since I couldn't find that in the book so I just did it the way I do with colored pencils - I started with some of the darkest colors first and worked my way up to the light highlight colors on the top. It seemed like it was taking forever to fill in the pine limb but really it wasn't too bad. As you can see, Kali was there to keep me company. I did have some broken threads that needed to be cleaned out of my machine, but didn't have to adjust my thread tension or bobbin tension.

I didn't manage to finish the one limb but so far so good . I just worked my way down the limb little by little going through layering the colors each time. It seems to be laying nice and flat. I can't wait to dunk the thing and see if water really will magically wash away the stabilizer!!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

I don't know about you but there is nothing I love more than order. A place for everything and everything in its place. So why is it so dang hard to keep it that way??? You'd think the way I value neatness, that I would have figured out in 40 years how to be neat?? Yes, I admit it ---- its a never ending battle.

That said, I went to use my sewing hole for the first time in three weeks and found that I could not find it. I mean, I'm quite sure I left it there somewhere, but with all the clutter that had accumulated in the room, I'm not sure where. I've been so busy doing handwork in my recliner in front of the TV that I really haven't visited the hole in forever. . . . well. . . at least not to sew in that is. Still, I haven't had any trouble using it as a dumping ground for all things that don't belong in there. Add to that the fact that I have several projects going at once and you get. . . .wait for it. . ..a big mess!

So I thought if I blogged out the before and after, I might manage to get the room clean so I could sew again. I mean can anybody create in chaos??? I can't. Usually that includes the whole house - if the house is messy - my mind seems to be messy. Can't create with a messy mind can you??So with your help, I've taken a couple evenings and cleaned up the room. It was a work out though since most of the things needed to go up on my third floor where I keep my fabric stash - sighhh - but God knows my thighs could use it - the work out I mean - not the fabric stash.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Well after finally getting my butt hand in motion - I finally finished up the handwork on this project. I managed to sew 10 - count them - 10 hours this week. I don't know why I'm whining so much. I really do enjoy doing the handwork. Still it seemed like it took forever and this was a busy week with it being the holiday of ghosts and goblins. Not to mention now I have a real idea of how much time I'm watching TV!!!!

Anyways. . . .with that behind me I'm onto doing the thread work of the pine needles. I know I've read and seen how to machine embrodier but have never really tried it. I won a nice sulky thread pack last month which included all sorts of stabilizers though and they have instructions. . . . .so I'll give it a whirl!

Hopefully I can fit it in while looking at all the quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival - my gosh the talent out there is amazing!!!!